Bad Wolf

This article is about Doctor Who episode. For the folk tale character, see Big Bad Wolf. For a listing of various mentions of the phrase in the 2005 series of Doctor Who, see Story arcs in Doctor Who#Bad Wolf.

166a – "Bad Wolf"
Doctor Who episode
The Anne Droid "disintegrates" another contestant.
Cast
Doctor Christopher Eccleston (Ninth Doctor)
Companions Billie Piper (Rose Tyler) John Barrowman (Jack Harkness)
Others Jo Joyner – Lynda Moss Jamie Bradley – Strood Abi Eniola – Crosbie Davina McCall – Voice of Davinadroid Paterson Joseph – Rodrick Jenna Russell – Floor Manager Anne Robinson – Voice of Anne Droid Trinny Woodall – Voice of Trine-e Susannah Constantine – Voice of Zu-Zana Jo Stone-Fewings – Male Programmer Nisha Nayar – Female Programmer Dominic Burgess – Agorax Karren Winchester – Fitch Kate Loustau – Colleen Sebastian Armesto - Broff Martha Cope - Controller Sam Callis – Security Guard Alan Ruscoe, Paul Kasey – Androids Nicholas Briggs – Dalek Voice
Production
Writer	Russell T Davies
Director	Joe Ahearne
Script editor	Helen Raynor
Producer	Phil Collinson
Executive producer(s)	Russell T Davies Julie Gardner Mal Young
Production code	1.12
Series	Series 1
Length	1st of 2-part story, 45 minutes
Originally broadcast	June 11, 2005
Chronology
← Preceded by Followed by → "Boom Town" "The Parting of the Ways"

"Bad Wolf" is the twelfth episode of the first series of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast on June 11, 2005. The TARDIS crew find themselves trapped in the Gamestation, also known as Satellite 5, where they must battle to survive the cruel games. However, when Rose is taken away, the Doctor realizes his deadliest enemies have returned en masse.

It is the first of a two-part story. The concluding episode, "The Parting of the Ways", was first broadcast on 18 June.

Plot

The three TARDIS travellers find themselves separated, waking up with temporary amnesia in various reality television and game shows. The Doctor (Christopher Eccleston) finds himself in a Big Brother house hosted by the "Davinadroid" (Davina McCall), Rose (Billie Piper) on the set of The Weakest Link hosted by the "Anne Droid" (Anne Robinson), and Jack (John Barrowman) facing the female androids Trine-e and Zu-Zana (Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine) who offer to give him a brand new image, à la What Not to Wear.

All three find out that the shows are more fatal than their twenty-first century counterparts. On The Weakest Link and Big Brother, losing contestants are seemingly disintegrated, while on What Not to Wear, participants undergo major cosmetic surgery. Jack and the Doctor escape from their shows, the Doctor bringing along a contestant called Lynda (Jo Joyner), and discover they are on the former Satellite Five, which the Doctor previously visited in "The Long Game", now under the control of the Badwolf Corporation.

Lynda is instrumental in filling in the gaps in the narrative. She explains to the Doctor that a hundred years ago the satellite's broadcasts suddenly stopped, and as a result, progress on Earth halted. The Doctor realises that he was responsible for the change.

The Doctor, Jack, and Lynda search for Rose. They find her as she loses in the final round of The Weakest Link, and is promptly disintegrated. They are arrested, but escape their capture and travel to the control room on Floor 500. There they meet the Controller (Martha Cope), a cybernetic human, who obliquely tells the Doctor that contest losers are not disintegrated, but 'transmatted' to an empty point in space. The Doctor and Jack discover, to their horror, hundreds of ships containing 400,000 Daleks. Detected, the Daleks open a communication channel to the Doctor, who resolves to rescue Rose and then exterminate the Dalek race once and for all. In response, the Daleks' last action before the episode ends is to start their invasion of Earth.

Continuity

• When the Doctor first tries to escape from the Big Brother house, Lynda reveals that a "deadlock seal" prevents contestants from escaping. Deadlock seals are mentioned again in "School Reunion" (2006), "Evolution of the Daleks" (2007) and "42" and are the only kind of seals that a single Sonic Screwdriver is incapable of penetrating alone. Exo-glass, first mentioned in "The End of the World", is said here to require a nuclear bomb to penetrate.
• The word "transmat" was first used as shorthand for matter transmission in The Ark in Space (1975) and has been the standard term used in the programme ever since.
• While playing The Weakest Link, Rose successfully answers a question about the Face of Boe, who first appears in "The End of the World", 5 billion years after "Bad Wolf". The Face of Boe is also mentioned in "The Long Game", and appears in a larger role in "New Earth" and "Gridlock".
• Jack and the Doctor are sentenced to the Lunar Penal Colony, which the Third Doctor was sent to in Frontier in Space.
• In The One Doctor, a parody of The Weakest Link called Superbrain is shown. As with all Doctor Who spin-off media, its relationship to the televised serials is open to interpretation.
• In one of "The Weakest Link" sequences, one of the correct answers is revealed to be Torchwood, the first appearance of the name in Doctor Who.

Bad Wolf

• The term "Bad Wolf" appears in every episode of the first series except for the two-part stories which only have one explicit reference between the two episodes (see Story arcs in Doctor Who). It is also seen in further series of Doctor Who and in the Torchwood episode "Captain Jack Harkness" as graffiti inside the dance hall.
• References to "Bad Wolf" outside the series include it being used as an idiom in The Clockwise Man where Melissa Hart says "You do keep turning up like a bad wolf instead of bad penny. Bad wolf is also used as a password for the UNIT website, several appearances on the BBC's own web site, and its use in the first three of the New Series Adventures spin-off novels. The BBC Bad Wolf website lists the various clues and possible theories as to its identity.
• Upon revealing the Bad Wolf Corporation logo to the Doctor, Lynda proclaims the line "Your lords and masters" — a line echoed in "Daleks in Manhattan" by Eric Loren's character Mr. Diagoras.
• In "Turn Left", the term "Bad Wolf" is sent as a message to the Doctor by Rose Tyler, through Donna Noble, to signify the end of the universe.

Daleks

• When Rose wakes up in the Dalek spaceship, the background sound effects are similar to the sounds of the Dalek City in The Daleks as well as to those in the Dalek control room in the basement of the school in Remembrance of the Daleks and many other Dalek bases throughout the series. The point-of-view angle backing her up against a wall is also similar to how the Daleks were first shown menacing Barbara in that serial's first episode cliffhanger, already echoed once before in "Dalek".
• The Dalek saucer design is similar to the one seen in the new CGI effects sequences produced for the 2003 DVD release of The Dalek Invasion of Earth, itself based upon the design seen in the 1960s TV Century 21 comic strip The Daleks. Saucer-like Dalek spacecraft are also seen or referred to in The Daleks' Master Plan (1965–1966), Planet of the Daleks (1973), Death to the Daleks (1974) and Revelation of the Daleks (1985).
• According to the DVD commentary for this episode, the music that is heard as the Dalek fleet is revealed includes a chorus singing "What is happening?" (transliterated: Mah Kor'ei) in Hebrew.
• The Doctor's promise to "wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky" echoes a vow made by Abslom Daak, the protagonist of the spin-off Doctor Who-related comic strip Abslom Daak, Dalek Killer.

Outside references

• The Davinadroid voice tells the Doctor that he is on Channel 44000 and asks him not to swear, echoing Davina McCall's requests during live broadcasts to the house in the actual Big Brother program. The Big Brother UK TV Theme is played during this and several other segments of the episode.
• Apart from the fictional Bear with Me, all the other shows Lynda mentions as coming from the Game Station are based on popular British game and makeover shows: Call My Bluff, Countdown, Ground Force, Wipeout and Stars in Their Eyes.
• The Doctor's final line of the episode is "I'm coming to get you." This is Davina McCall's traditional announcement to contestants about to be evicted from the Big Brother house in the UK.
• Some of the questions used in the Weakest Link Scenes were also used in the Doctor Who Special of the actual show. The "Anne Droid" also made an appearance in the special.

Production

• A working title for this episode was "Gameshow World".
• This was the last of the 2005 Doctor Who episode titles to be revealed. Prior to this, the episode was referred to in promotional literature as "The Parting of the Ways (Part 1)", with "Part 2" eventually becoming simply "The Parting of the Ways".
• According to episode 12 of Doctor Who Confidential, the production team originally intended to show Jack's naked buttocks on screen. The scene was shot, but the BBC's editorial policy department stepped in and vetoed it, the only time they overruled the production team during the 2005 series. Viewers finally got the chance to see Barrowman's posterior in "Day Two" of the Children of Earth story that made up Torchwood's third series.
• Russell T Davies mentioned that the "arc word" for the subsequent series was mentioned in this series, as well as being an anagram. One of the answers during The Weakest Link scenes was that the Great Cobalt Pyramid was built on the ruins of the famous Old Earth Torchwood Institute; "Torchwood" being an anagram of "Doctor Who". In 2006, a spin-off series titled Torchwood began, set in modern-day Cardiff and involving a team investigating paranormal and alien incidents, and featuring John Barrowman reprising his role of Jack Harkness.

Cast notes

• Nisha Nayar, the actress cast as the Female Programmer in this episode, previously appeared as one of the uncredited 'Red Kang' extras in the 1987 classic series story Paradise Towers. This made her the second actor to appear in both the classic and new series of Doctor Who, following William Thomas's appearance in the previous episode, "Boom Town".
• The episode features guest appearances (voices only) by Davina McCall, Anne Robinson, Susannah Constantine and Trinny Woodall. (See also Celebrity appearances in Doctor Who.)
• According to Doctor Who Confidential, although Anne Robinson was invited to voice the Anne Droid, the expectation was that she would decline. A celebrity voice impersonator had already been hired to record the lines when Robinson accepted.
• Billie Piper had previously appeared in a spoof of The Weakest Link with Ant and Dec on the morning show SM:TV Live. Sixth Doctor Colin Baker was also a contestant in a special "Doctors" episode of the programme (coincidentally broadcast shortly before "The Parting of the Ways"), as well as for a segment of the 2004 Children in Need charity appeal. The latter segment involved the game also being played by the cast of Dead Ringers and involved past monsters, previous Doctors and K-9 vying for parts in the new series.
• Martha Cope later played Captain Oswin in the audio play The Nowhere Place and Talia in Bedtime Story.
• Paterson Joseph later played Victor Espinoza in the audio play Earth Aid.
• Sebastian Armesto later played Anders in the audio play Grand Theft Cosmos.

External links

• Bad Wolf (TV story) on TARDIS Index File, an external wiki
• "Bad Wolf" at the BBC Doctor Who homepage
• "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting Of The Ways" at Doctor Who: A Brief History Of Time (Travel)
• "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• "Bad Wolf" at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Bad Wolf" at TV.com
• Doctor Who Confidential — Episode 12: The World of Who
• "Rose, you leave this life with nothing." — Episode trailer for "Bad Wolf"
• Bad Wolf site
• "Bad Wolf" at the Internet Movie Database

Reviews

• "Bad Wolf" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" reviews at Outpost Gallifrey
• "Bad Wolf" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide
• "Bad Wolf" / "The Parting of the Ways" reviews at The Doctor Who Ratings Guide